Thursday, March 4, 2010

First comes love, then comes sex.. Or is it the other way around?


What makes a relationship tick? Or another way to ask this question is.. Which comes first? Sex? or Love?

Men need sexual fulfillment in order to respond to a woman emotionally. Women need emotional fulfillment in order to respond to a man sexually. It's a catch 22. Women willingly give sex to get what we
think is love, and men act like they love us to get some sex. Happens all the time!


Why do we settle for this? Mostly because our culture hammers home these roles for women to play. Nurturer, organizer, lover, care giver, life giver.. And men are pegged into gender roles as well. From "sturdy oaks" to providers to sperm donors to studs. Having no real bearing on intimacy for men,
sex is made out to be a mere outlet. And so it is...

I understand it.. That Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.. But I don't like it!

The Martian I think I could totally trust with my life and my child's life, eludes me. His hotness is hardly the only quality that attracted me to him. He is pure old school, in that.. when he's with me, he is attentive, protective, generous and considerate.
The chemistry- was locked down since day 1! The trust evolved from early on. People tell us we look great together! Even though he's an inch shorter than I am. He was among the car loads of Masons my brother gathered to help me move 12 years ago. Back then, there was so much potential for a real long term love affair. But after all this time, we can't seem to connect.. The way I need us to.

Over the years we've been more off than on. Weeks, sometimes months will pass
before he calls or invites me out with -a nice fat wallet and months' worth of sob stories and woes I don't care to hear. "Where were you when I need to talk about my stuff?" I've asked. Before long.. he'll make the claim to feel rejected and misunderstood by me. Thus my weariness of his sex for love games.

Six weeks ago he had a minor surgery and paid a visit to my daughter and I. I realized what he really wanted was some sympathy that could lead to ...sex. Offering many compliments and much PDA (public displays of affection).. But. One of the first things I noticed was his weight gain and his attire. He was always so well groomed. And what happened to his sense of style? Nothing he could say or do could endear me to him that night. Deep inside I care for him, but I'm no longer attracted to him. I wish I had been able to feel the spark I felt when we first met.. It's a pity, I could not.

Curious about his recovery, I called him yesterday. He tried to engage me with the goings on in life for the past 6 weeks.. Eventually he got around to telling me how rejected he feels, again. WTF? He's not even trying to appeal to me! The next thing I know.. I'm saying something like this:
"If you're really interested in me, now is the time to step up your A game! Return calls. And don't text me on Mother's Day and New Year's Eve anymore! Call and ask how I'm doing more often, since you seem to need to tell me how things are going with you. I don't want to hear about your ailments and your parenting struggles every time I talk to you, if I can't call you with mine any time I want to. You love it that I look so great? What's going on with you that you're gaining so much weight?..."

When it was all said and done, I was very proud of myself.
It felt wonderful to put the onus on him about from whence comes my rejection of his unwanted sexual overtures, and lack of attention to the real details.

I feel it's waay past time for him to move past dishing out compliments to really making an effort to get to know... How I feel & what I think. No longer is an occasional dinner and cocktails and dancing and movies and arcades and theater and PDA.. worth getting undressed for.


So.. is it possible for good women to get what they want from good men? Besides good sex? Like.. a loyal friend, confidant.. and helpmate? Hell! A tech support guy - if he can pull it off! I think offering a woman real emotional fulfillment equals commitment to most men, and commitment equals loss of freedom, loss of options, loss of virility and loss of youth. And we all know men have a hellacious problem with commitment and losing!

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